Surprised that they are going forward with this project. My thinking had been that the damaged and burned spent fuel assemblies would simply fall apart if handled for removal. Apparently, TEPCO believes that they can deal with those that dump fuel pellets into piles on the floor of SFP4. This is good news!

Just a semi-earthquake-proof anti-camera cover that won't easily blow away in the wind. Once the cover is installed, the radiation level on the interior will go sky high, ie. no humans or robots will work in there.

I agree. This is just cosmetic to hide the ugly destroyed building and so give the impression that the problem is solved. Next step, get the general public to agree to forget it happened by publicly praising themselves and stoking national pride for how quickly they dealt with the problem.

It would have to be ventilated, majia. There's too much hydrogen outgassing (tritium or otherwise) from even a 'normal' SPF. It could build up to explosive levels.

Unfortunately, there's really no easy way to filter out the tritium. That's why it's just exhausted directly outside with fans from the refueling floor at BWRs. There's ways to adsorb *all* hydrogen from exhaust air, but it would be way too expensive for a utility.

In the early plans, this structure looked like it was going to be made of reinforced concrete. I was pleased to see that they are actually using steel. Would be nice to know whether the steel for similar structures is on order for SFP1,2,&3.

Did 1/4 of the fuel assemblies catch fire after 311? Did up to half of the spent fuel assemblies burn? Damaged or corroded spent fuel assemblies are likely to spill fuel (up to half a ton of pellets per fuel assembly) during removal. These hot pellets would be in water for moderation. Hot fuel pellets would fall into piles that would quickly go critical. No borated rack walls to keep fuel assemblies apart. No zirconium cladding to keep fuel pellets separated. No control rods like in the reactors to soak up neutrons, and shut the reaction down. Just piles of critical fuel pellets on the floor of the SFP.

TEPCO: What is the plan for handling loose fuel pellets?

(Best have plenty of borated sand and powdered lead handy to dump on spilled fuel pellets just in case. Fine, but what then?)

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